A bow drawn at a venture
by Pegship
Summary: Speculation as to a possible ending for season 8. Kate Beckett prepares to embark on a quest to track down LokSat's mastermind once and for all. She won't be alone, but it won't be Rick by her side - it'll be a woman they both know and trust, even with their lives.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: Speculation on my part as to how the end of this season might be handled._

* * *

"I hate this," Rick mumbled into his wife's neck. "Just for the record, I hate this."

Kate tightened her arms around him. "Seconded."

"Even if it's the best of a bad bunch of choices. I want to go with you."

"You can't, babe, you know why."

Their lovemaking had been fierce and desperate and he, of all people, had burst into tears after they had come down from their respective highs. Kate's tears trickled silently down to soak the pillow under her head and she held him fast, as though he were the one who'd soon be leaving.

Rick lifted his head to gaze down at her as she lay beneath him.

"I do know," he said. "It wouldn't be so bad if I could call or write you or something. Are you sure there are no global carrier pigeon networks any more?"

That was a hint of his usual dark humor. Kate knew that, even if she had a chance to get in touch with him, the means might not be available. She had no idea where she'd end up, or in what state, but she wouldn't be alone.

But she wouldn't have him by her side.

"At least I'll have Rita as my 'handler'," she said, trying for a silver lining. "I've seen her in action, Rick. If anyone can help us chase down a criminal mastermind, she can. And I trust her more than I trust your father. You know that."

He nodded; their previous joint experience with Jackson Hunt had left a bad taste in both of their mouths, and Rick himself wasn't anxious to interact with the man again, ever. For all her detached demeanor, he and Kate both knew by now how much Rita cared about them both.

Things had become dire, after Kate's investigation into LokSat had been thrust into the public eye. Half the people who knew about it didn't believe it, and those who did believe it wanted to throw Kate under the bus. She had been permitted to resign from her NYPD command position, and after hours of discussion and analysis with Rick and Rita, she had made a decision to partner with the latter in their mission to defeat LokSat.

Rick would have dropped everything to go with them - but Rita put her foot down. And he saw her point. His career as a novelist made him too recognizable (though he had offered to grow a beard and wear glasses); he had financial and other obligations, including that of keeping his mother and his daughter safe.

"If you disappear, there are too many people with a stake in you and your career who'd tear around looking for you," had been Rita's assessment. "If Kate disappears - sorry, dear - it'll cause a much smaller ripple in the public eye."

"I'm counting on it," Kate had said. "It'll just look like I faded into the shadows. Reckless, disgraced - gone rogue." She had turned to Rick then and said quietly, "You have to be here for my dad, too, you know. You'll be our home base, our central ops. Everything we find, everything we know, we'll make sure you get word."

Now he lay back and gathered his wife to his chest, not expecting to sleep, knowing that tomorrow night he'd be alone in this bed, but not knowing for how long.

"I love you," he said vehemently, then more softly, "I love you, Kate. Always."

She wrapped herself around him and murmured, "I love you too, Castle."

* * *

 _To be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

"I don't know what's worse," said Rita conversationally. "Being pinned down by a single goon with plenty of time and ammo, or being pinned down by said goon without having breakfast first."

"Most important meal of the day," Kate muttered, tucking away her empty sidearm. She had been checking their opponent's position with the bits of detritus lying nearby - a broomstick handle, a piece of cardboard, a thrown pencil. All she'd accomplished is confirmation that their goon was fixed in position and a crack shot.

He'd hit everything she'd shown him.

"I think by now he's just angry," said her companion. "We did take out his boss, after all."

"That's the one thing keeping me going right now," Kate replied. "I'm not going to fall to this guy after what we've been through."

It had taken too long. Not just today, but for weeks, but finally, finally she had come face to face with her nemesis. The one who had calmly caused and ordered slaughter of her friends - and a few of her enemies - and God knew how many others, in the course of running a drug kingdom.

She and Rita had started the dominoes falling, seen the result of that one death spreading through the underground network. From the lowest lackeys to the top-level sergeants, they were scattering like roaches in a spotlight, betraying and killing each other on the way.

"Guess I can die happy now," she said under her breath as their unseen foe chipped off the corner of a wooden crate nearby. Probably just to show off, she thought, and turned to Rita to say so, only to find the older woman glaring at her.

"Happy or not, you're not dying today," said Rita. "You're going to live, and somehow we're going to get you and Castle back together. In this life, not the next."

Kate had been trying, more or less successfully, to put Rick out of her mind, knowing that a moment of nostalgia or pang of regret would throw her concentration.

"I bow to your superior judgment," said Kate, only a little sarcastically, "but I don't see how that's going to happen. He - " she jerked her head in the direction of the goon - "can outwait us. For all we know, he has backup."

"For all we know, there might already have been three guys swapping shifts up there," Rita agreed. "You think I haven't considered that? No, we have something he hasn't got. Something neither he nor you are expecting, something that will turn the tide in our favor."

"If you're talking about your husband - "

"I'm talking about yours."

Kate was completely derailed by this statement, but before she could reply a shot rang out in the blind alley that was the current battleground. A shot that had not come from a rifle, or from the place where the goon had last been spotted.

"Hand gun," she whispered. "From...two o'clock?"

"Good ear," Rita said just as quietly. There was another shot, this time from somewhere near their left, and this time there was an answering shot from their sniper, which appeared to chip off some mortar from the crumbling brick wall on that side.

"Two of 'em?"

"I don't think so," Rita said. "I think one's real, and the other is a decoy. No one could have entered the alley without being seen either by us or by the sniper."

Kate's gaze raked over the truncated landscape. Their enemy was shooting from a broken, blacked-out window near the mouth of the alley, which was in an industrial area not frequented by, well, anyone, especially at night. There was a dumpster with no wheels, behind which Kate and Rita were hunkered, and a variety of other trash and broken crates scattered between them and the street.

Not a creature was stirring, not even the usual rat specimen.

The sniper fired at the wall above where they were hidden, and bits of brick rained down on them. Rita grimaced.

"You've been in standoffs before, I presume," she said to Kate. "So you know what happens. Fatigue, distraction, you start wondering what the hell you're doing here."

"Been wondering that for a while," Kate said. "Like, since last April."

Rita flashed a grin, then went on, "Sometimes you get so far inside your own head, you start seeing things. Things you wish would happen, imagining positive outcomes for the situation. Sometimes, even negative outcomes."

"Fascinating lecture," said Kate, still sneaking peeks around the dumpster. "Your point?"

"Don't make a sound," Rita warned. "Look to your one. The cement wall."

Kate didn't see anything but poorly-covered graffiti - for a solid minute - then - She clapped her hand over her mouth even as another shot rang out, this time from the mouth of the alley. At the same moment, the uneven paint on the wall seemed to fluctuate momentarily, then went still again.

Kate turned to stare at Rita, speechless.

"Wish I still had my cell," said that lady. "I'd take a picture of your expression."

~tbc~


	3. Chapter 3

"Wish I still had my cell," said Rita. "I'd take a picture of your expression."

Her own expression froze as a voice howled from the alley entrance.

"Come out here and try that, asshole!"

The sniper fired at the source of the shout, and a piece of cement fell to the sidewalk. Kate and Rita couldn't see anyone from their spot, but Kate thought she recognized the voice.

"I took out all your backup," roared their visitor. "It's just you now, idiot. You can either pick me off, come out with your hands on your head, or sink back into the slime you came from and call it a day."

Another shot winged the corner of the building; apparently the target was extremely good at either ducking or hiding. Probably both.

"Slaughter," Kate whispered. At Rita's blank look she added, "Ethan Slaughter. NYPD's loosest cannon. What's he doing here?"

Rita grabbed Kate's arm and gestured over her shoulder. "Drawing fire away from that."

"That" was the undulating surface of the cement wall, closer now, about ten feet from their dumpster shield. It looked for all the world like the wall was bulging outward, and the bulge was moving toward them, very, very slowly.

"I'm guessing that Richard has connections with someone who experiments with cloaking material," said Rita.

Kate connected the dots (and made a note to ask Rita how she knew about cloaking technology) and drew her empty gun from its holster. Carefully she reached just beyond the protection of the dumpster and laid the weapon on the ground, trying not to move too quickly or make much noise.

The man at the other end of the alley was making plenty of noise, hollering insults in between exchanging fire with the sniper. The latter seemed to find Slaughter better sport than the two women; he spent a few minutes chipping bits off the building in an effort to hit the moving shadow of his target.

"Definitely not one of the All-Stars," said Kate, watching the motion of the wall. "A real sniper wouldn't go off target so easily."

"All-Stars?"

"The Zero Dark Thirty All-Stars," Kate explained. "Vikram's name for the hit squads."

She had no further time to think of Vikram, the hit squads, Slaughter, or even Rita. A fusillade of shots suddenly filled the alley, the sound bouncing off the bare walls, and the two women shuffled closer to the back of the dumpster in hopes to avoid getting winged by fragments of cement or brick.

A moment later, Kate was knocked on her back, winded, by an unseen force, as though someone had made a dive for cover and landed nearly on top of her. By now this bizarre action involving Slaughter and a cloaked partner was starting to make sense. Which meant that she was either hallucinating, or -

She grabbed at the place where the air seemed to warp, caught hold of fabric and held on for dear life.

"Are you all right?" gasped the warped air.

Instantly divining the exact source of the gasp, Kate flung her arms around the neck of their new comrade and hugged him tighter than she'd ever done.

"You're here," she said. "I'm fine."

"For now," Rita interjected. "Castle, what the hell?"

Rick's face appeared as he peeled the hood off the suit he was wearing. His face was red and there was caked blood on his brow, but otherwise he looked like he'd just beat Kate at Scrabble.

"Here," he panted, extracting two handguns from his invisible pockets. He handed them, along with some extra cartridges, to Kate, who passed some over to Rita.

"What about you?" Kate asked. Castle patted his side, then remembered the cloak and reached into the suit to pull out a weapon.

"How long can your partner last?" Rita asked. "Was he just covering for your moves?"

"That was his original mission," said Castle. "But as Kate knows, Slaughter doesn't always stick to the original mission. Between the squibs I was throwing and the verbal harassment, with any luck the shooter won't have noticed me. Slaughter's well provided."

"So now that you're here," said Kate, "what's *your* mission?"

"Get you two out of here," said Castle. "I don't know whether that guy's acting on orders or if he's just pursuing vengeance on his own. There were only two other guys lurking around the entrance, and neither one had a chance to call for more backup before Slaughter took them out."

"Someone might be watching from another building," Rita pointed out.

"One death threat at a time, please," said Castle, only half kidding. "Can we deal with that once we're done with this guy?"

"Do we have a choice?" said Kate, but when both Rita and Castle opened their mouths to reply, she threw up a hand to silence them. "All right, Castle, how do we get out of here?"

"Smoke and mirrors," he said. "Smoke, mostly. The suit might not be much good."

"Smoke bombs, to obscure the shooter's vision," Rita guessed, and Castle nodded. She went on, "Where are they?"

"Some here with me, some in the alley, under the room where he's set up," said Castle. "I can activate these, and Slaughter can set off the others by shooting them. Then we make a run for it, staying close to the wall under his window. Even if he saw us, he'd have to lean out the window to get a clear shot, and that'd make him a target."

"For your friend, I presume," said Rita. "We better move fast, then."


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N:** Kudos to the readers who spotted the references to previous episodes. I snuck one more in toward the end._

* * *

Their opponent seemed to be losing interest in Slaughter, who was intermittently shouting at him and ducking in and out of range as shots from the window came less frequently.

"He's having way too much fun," Castle muttered. He grabbed a small object from a pocket somewhere, stood swiftly, and pitched the object all the way to the end of the alley, landing about two feet from Slaughter.

"Nice arm there, Castle," said Kate as her partner ducked back down behind the dumpster. "Was that a signal?"

"Get ready to rumble," he grinned. Pulling the hood of his suit over his head, he said, "If you lose track of me, just give out with that whistle you use at the ball games."

"You know how to whistle, don'tcha?" Rita grinned in her turn. "Single file, under the window?"

"You two take that wall," said Castle. "I'll go back the way I came. Maybe catch his eye, give you a little more cover."

"You getting shot is unacceptable, as cover or anything else," Kate told him sternly.

"Hey," said her husband. "It's *me*."

He closed the front of the hood and started to edge out from behind the dumpster. Kate turned to Rita, who had a smoke bomb in one hand and a weapon in the other, and loaded herself up similarly.

"Ready...set...go," said Rita. She tossed a smoke bomb out, and under cover of the cloud she and Kate darted from cover and moved quickly to hug the wall on the left. Castle must have had some squibs left; the air was full of explosions, shots from various weapons, and bursts of smoke from canisters that were being set off by Slaughter's gunfire.

Kate wondered if this was what a war zone sounded like, and suppressed a cough with her arm as the smoke grew thicker. Neither she nor Rita spoke at all; occasionally Rita would fire a shot at a random window or wall, just to add to the confusion. Kate could see that, while their assailant could lean out the window to fire on them beneath him, they couldn't get a bead on him without having to wait for his arm or head to appear.

Aha - that's what Slaughter's for, she thought, and prayed that he was as good a shot as he frequently claimed. The sniper had resumed fire and was working his way along the opposite wall, shooting at evenly spaced distances in hopes of hitting what he could not see.

They were about halfway to the alley's entrance when Kate heard a sharp cry from her right. She had to stop herself from breaking and running to where Castle was - it was his voice, raised in abrupt pain and profanity. She couldn't see a thing, but she could hear him as he kept moving forward, more quickly now.

Rita glanced at Kate over her shoulder, looking pleased at their progress, then tossed another squib, back towards the dead end, just to confuse even more.

"Run for it?" she whispered, and Kate nodded.

The sniper paused - reloading? thought Kate - and through the smoke Slaughter shouted, "Keep firing, idiot, backup's almost here. You're pinned, and I'm gonna be so happy to put a round through your skull when you refuse to surrender."

They were slinking ever faster toward freedom when Kate heard two shots close by and the clatter of something falling from above onto the pavement.

"What the - ?" she hissed. Rita grabbed her arm and half-dragged her forward. The gunfire had stopped, and so had the sound of Slaughter's voice. They stumbled forward, then sharply left and out of the clouds choking the alley.

Ethan Slaughter looked down at them and smirked.

"Took you long enough." Then he raised his voice yet again. "Hey, Sherlock, asshole is down. I got Castle's Angels over here."

They could hear Castle coughing, getting closer, finally emerging from the alley with the hood pulled off, a bizarre head without any visible means of transport.

Kate saw the blood seeping from nowhere, staining the arm of the suit, and this time it was even harder not to run to him. He stumbled over to where they stood, around the corner from the battlefield, and started peeling off the suit.

"I'm gonna go clear the building," said Slaughter.

"I'll go with," said Rita. Slaughter nodded, not even asking who she was, and the two of them disappeared.

Kate watched as Castle stuffed the suit into a messenger bag he'd been wearing, then launched herself at him, even so taking care of the wounded arm. His arms closed around her, holding her tight, as though she might try to escape.

He smelled like gunpowder and smoke and, unbelievably, freesia - he must have been using her shower gel! - and she breathed him in and realized he was trembling.

"Hey," she said, drawing back to look at him. "It's done. We're safe. It's over."

"Really over?" he asked, like a child.

"LokSat is dead. Rita killed him herself. There was no question of taking him into custody - he was completely willing to fight to the death. His underlings chased us into this part of town…"

"Three dead," announced Slaughter, leaning out the window next to the now-empty one the sniper had been using. "So far. Screw the story, Sherlock, go on and kiss her already."

He disappeared again and Kate grinned up at her husband. Then she sobered and said, "If you want to. I know it's been - I probably should have - "

Castle stopped her with a kiss, hungry and hot and far overdue. A faint cry of "That's more like it!" was answered with a one-finger salute from Castle, who otherwise did not let up on kissing his wife.

At last, they drew back a little to look at each other in awe.

"You did it," he murmured. "You really did it."

"How did you know we were here?" asked Kate. She was eager for details and desperate to talk about anything but her next mission.

"Alexis," he said simply. "She and Hayley have been monitoring police chatter for any word of two women in peril, especially if there were shots fired or someone missing. She found you two a couple of times in the last few weeks, but you seem to have gotten out of whatever trouble you were in, so I held my hand."

Kate appreciated his remarkable self-control. Had she really ever compared him to a cocker spaniel? Well, when it came to some things…

"But yesterday, we got word of some big collapse in the criminal world - drug raids, missed shipments - everything seemed to be coming to a head. NYPD was finding bodies right and left - all suspects in drug trafficking or conspiracy, or just pissing off the wrong people.

"Slaughter got hold of us, asked if there was anything he could do. We brainstormed all night and figured we could do worse than keep our ears open and stand ready."

"So you got hold of the suit from Sarkov's lab, and explosives from I don't want to know where - "

"That was Slaughter's department," said Castle.

"Of course. And just - cruised around until you heard gunfire? That's pretty random."

"Slaughter had a tip," Castle told her. "From a reliable source."

"Anybody we know?" asked Kate with a sense of foreboding.

"I'm not supposed to say," said Castle. "But he might be, um, married to someone you know."

Kate's jaw dropped. "Jackson - "

Castle once again employed unfair tactics to silence her. Not that she complained. By the time they surfaced, Rita and Slaughter had rejoined them, Slaughter stepping away to call in the scene.

"Three dead, total," said Rita. "Our sniper, one guy on the ground floor, another in a stairwell. Ethan says he didn't take the stairwell guy out, but neither of them were on our side of the law, so I'm not gonna shed any tears."

Somehow, Kate thought that Rita wasn't likely to shed tears over anyone, except maybe Jackson Hunt. And Castle.

Rita then surprised her by pulling her into a one-armed hug.

"We did it, Kate," she said. "Not just us, and we're not completely out of the woods yet. But we damn well did it, you and I."

She grinned at Kate. Slaughter came over, hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a tourist.

"So, Sherlock," he began. "About our deal - "

"Not now," said Castle hastily. "Haven't discussed it with the missus yet."

Slaughter rolled his eyes. "Don't drag your feet, pal. I want to make the catch before my hero status wears off."

Kate rolled her eyes in her turn. Rita snorted. Castle scowled.

"Now what?" he asked.

"You know what," said Kate, suddenly weary. "Processing the crime scene, clearing the bodies, controlling the media. Paperwork."

"I bet you don't miss that part of the job," Castle said. "Gates has been filling in, in your absence, by the way."

"I arranged that," said Kate. "If this all went south, I was going to take the fall. Gates understands that kind of sacrifice."

"And now that you and Rita have succeeded?"

"NYPD claims it was all part of a plan, I get some credit and resintatement at the Twelfth." Kate squeezed Castle's hand. "And I get you back. Even without the rest of it, that's enough for me."

"Listen," said Rita, looking up and around at the abandoned buildings, "I have to go. Get some breakfast, you know? I'll catch up with you two later."

Castle looked puzzled, but Kate smiled and nodded. Slaughter just looked bored as Rita strode briskly away, then he brightened at the sound of approaching sirens.

"Come on, Captain," he said to Kate. "Time to face the music and bask in the glory."

He started walking toward the approaching squad cars. Castle shook his head.

"Mixing metaphors. Cheap trick."

"By the way," said Kate as they walked hand in hand after Slaughter, "what was the deal between you and him? Do I want to know?"

"Well, I'm gonna need your help with that," said Castle. "I promised him a date. Not with you! Are you kidding me?"

Kate chuckled. "With Bachelorette Number Six?"

"Um, actually, you know, while we were apart I learned some interesting things about Detective Slaughter."

"Again - do I want to know?"

"He majored in musical theatre," Castle told her. "And he loves to cook."

Kate stopped in her tracks. "No."

"Yep. Believe me, I was even more shocked than you. Anyway - he's been wanting to go to Q3, your friend Maddy's restaurant..."

"Oh, so he wants us to get him in?"

"So to speak," said Castle. "I promised him a date. With - Maddy."

Kate's jaw dropped at the absurdity and audacity of such a promise. Then she shrugged and laughed.

After defeating the most powerful drug ring on the East Coast, she thought, anything is possible.

 ** _=fin=_**


End file.
